Modern cellular networks face the challenge that the demand for data traffic is increasing dramatically. Network operators need to modify their networks to increase the overall capacity. One solution may be to place denser macro cells. However, this solution may be very costly and rapidly moving users might be required to perform handovers very frequently. Another solution may be heterogeneous networks. One macro cell may be used for coverage of a larger area and pico or femto cells may be placed into the coverage area to increase the capacity at some “hot spots”. The deployment of femto and pico cells may be less expensive compared to new macro cells, may increase the coverage, and may increase the overall data throughput of the network. However, it may generate as well strong interference scenarios, especially if the operator targets a frequency reuse of one, i.e., all macro/pico/femto cells transmit in the same frequency band.
The 3GPP standardization has introduced enhanced inter-cell interference coordination (eICIC) in Release 10 of LTE to support a deployment of heterogeneous networks. Time-domain eICIC introduces almost blank sub-frames (ABS) at aggressor cells. During these sub-frames, a UE connected to the victim cell and facing strong interference from the aggressor cells, may be able to receive data from the victim cell. However, during these ABS sub-frames, the aggressor cells may continue to transmit cell specific reference signals (CRS)—these CRS signals may degrade the overall data throughput of conventional technologies significantly. It may thus be desirable to provide a method and a device to improve the data throughput in a time-domain eICIC scenario such that the performance improvement is significant and the computational complexity is smaller than for known solutions.
A similar interference scenario arises as well in a synchronized network without eICIC scheduling: if an aggressor cell does not schedule a PDSCH transmission for a particular resource block then it continues to transmit the CRS signals in this resource block. The invention can as well be applied in such a scenario.